Netanyahu's chutzpa knows no bound

Here we go again, Prime Minister Netanyahu blasts UN Secretary General Ban for comments he made on the recent violence. In translation, Netanyahu didn't like to hear the bitter truth. What is all the fuss about? Here is what Ban said:

Ban called for equal justice for both Israelis and Palestinians alike who commit such crimes.

"Palestinian frustration is growing under the weight of a half century of occupation and the paralysis of the peace process. Some have taken me to task for pointing out this indisputable truth. Yet, as oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism," he said.

The UN chief said that "Progress towards peace requires a freeze of Israel’s settlement enterprise."

"Continued settlement activities are an affront to the Palestinian people and to the international community. They rightly raise fundamental questions about Israel’s commitment to a two-state solution," he said.

He also addressed the situation in the Gaza Strip, condemning Hamas rocket fire, and warning that the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains perilous.  "I continue to strongly believe that conditions in Gaza pose a severe threat to long-term peace and security in the region"

I don't see anything here other than the truth, the whole truth and nothing else but the truth. In response to Ban' statement, Netanyahu continues to repeat the canard that Palestinian violence is because "they want to murder Jews for being Jews".  Not because there is a suffocating illegal occupation that seems to be in perpetuity or because their lands and rights are being denied to them but because "they want to murder Jews for being Jews". 

A tiresome rhetorical exercise devoid of substance of which we all know he is quite good at.  

Netanyahu goes on to say:

The secretary-general's remarks provide a tailwind for terror. There is no justification for terror. Those Palestinians who murder do not want to build a state, they want to destroy a state and they say this openly,"

To me this statement is the height of chutzpah. Somehow the remarks of the Secretary General is providing the "tailwind for terror" not the actions of Israel? It is difficult to comprehend the level of hubris and denial in the head of that man. He sees ZERO culpability for Israel. This has been his routine for years - to blame everyone under the sun on the deteriorating situation and completely ignore where most of the responsibility truly lies - in his hands.  

He continues with his insolent tone, this time directed at the UN institution:

"The United Nations long ago lost its neutrality and its moral force, and the secretary's remarks do no improve its standing."

The standing of Israel has hardly improved under his leadership. In fact, poll after poll continue to show Israel is becoming less favorable and more isolated.

Let me also add, the Palestinians are not free from any blame. Their grievances are legitimate and they do have the moral high ground in this regard - and international law is on their side. Violence will only serve Israeli interest. They need to stop the violence. They need to resist peacefully, no doubt, they need to unite, no doubt, and they need to seek support from wherever they can find it. Most of all, they need to have a plan that all parties can and must unite under. This is difficult to impossible to do with the Palestinian factions so divided.

It is a tough dilemma to be in but the Palestinians need to find a way to unite.

Otherwise, Israel will continue to play out this tragedy for another century. They are clever and their job is made so much easier with idiots like Fatah and Hamas.

The next slogan coming out of Israel will be, " there are already two states".

Recent violence in the occupied territories and Israel

The violence continues unabated in Israel and the occupied territories.  On one side you have settlers terrorizing the Palestinians and the IDF doing it's usual measure of shootings - in the name of security( of course), and on the Palestinian side they have gone mad with their stabbing spree attacking Jews - in the name of resistance( of course) - and one wonders where will this end? The death toll to date is 161 Palestinians dead versus 22 Israeli's.

Let me express how sickened I am by reading about this latest wave of violence. How can it be a 13 yr old girl actually set out to stab an Israeli guard? Is that to be believed - was the knife planted next to her - but nevertheless, it is very shocking and highlights the madness that is the occupied territories. Here is what the headlines say regarding this incident:

They go on to report that:

Jerusalem: 

A 13-year-old Palestinian girl tried to stab an Israeli guard at a West Bank settlement Saturday and was shot dead, the latest bloodshed in a months-long wave of attacks, police said.

Since I can't verify the authenticity of the second photo, was it photo-shopped or not, not going to comment on what happened but clearly one has to question whether or not there weren't other means to subdue her.

If this was not bad enough, days later anther bizarre headline appeared:

Palestinian twin sisters accused of making bombs for attacks

One 18-year-old learned how to make explosives from online videos, second helped hide them in their house, Shin Bet says

Israeli security forces arrested 18-year-old bomb-making twin sisters from Shwaika, outside the Palestinian city of Tulkarem in the West Bank last month, the Shin Bet security service announced Monday

Just when you think it's couldn't get any more crazier, another stabbing incident occurs the next day:

I have only scratched the surface. There are many more incidents where Palestinians stab or attempt to stab Israeli's and where the IDF is shooting Palestinians.  Some of course are justifiable shootings but many are not - and there are many cases of settlers terrorizing the natives. No way to sugarcoat this unfolding tragedy and madness. The Palestinians while under international law do have the right to resist the occupation such suicidal acts by women and children going up against armed Israeli's in no way shape or form can be justified. It is madness. It is counterproductive. It is futile and suicidal. It is dumb and stupid. Most of all, it will not advance the Palestinian cause or bring the two people closer to peace or ending the occupation. If Palestinian leadership is so inept not to offer their people a solution other than send their women and children out on desperate suicide missions then it is time to get new leadership.  There has to be a better way. I intentionally refuse to get into the moral question behind Palestinian attacks - and God knows it troubles me to no end to see any civilians killed - but the moral card is best left to those in a position to make moral judgements. I see two people tied in a knot that neither can escape from on their own. Although, I see Israel with the power to shape reality and facts on grounds - for better or worse - and sadly since it's being ruled by right wingers it's being shaped to the detriment of both Israeli's and Palestinians. I see the Palestinians hopelessly dysfunctional, traumatized and damaged ( the same can be said of Israeli's) as a people with failed leadership. They are the gang that can't shoot straight even with 20/20 vision. They always miss the forest from the trees. Israel is not giving them a way out. What follows is madness. You are watching madness before your very eyes. Israeli's unfortunately will not see such acts as anything more than "they want to kills the Jews". Some Israeli's will scream out we told you the so called " peace and quiet" is an illusion. People like Gideon Levy or Amira Haas or those who for years saw the suffering on the other side knew this day was coming. Yet, Israeli's will do what they always do,  shut their eyes, time to be scared and flex more muscles - and of course time to "mow the lawn".  

Home demolitions and settlement expansion is a recipe for co-existance? I think not.

The sad reality is that demolition of Palestinian homes is a ongoing process. It never stops. The colonial march towards eradicating the non-Jewish natives and replacing them with Jews is a 24/7 death march. As we read and are able to observe the growth of Israeli settlement expansion, another side of the same coin, is the daily demolition of Palestinian homes. This is the horror of what natives face against the onslaught of colonial expansion. The indigenous people are in the way of the colonizers grandiose scheme of racial/religious supremacy and purity. You can't have a "Jewish state" unless you remove the non-Jews from the land. To complicate matters, despite all of Zionist efforts for the past 70 years, the non-Jewish population remains the majority if you count from the Jordan sea to the Mediterranean. This artificial creation of a Jewish state is doomed to be involved in a perpetual struggle forever. A secular one state might be the answer but getting Israeli's and Palestinians to agree on this might prove impossible.
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Israel demolished three Palestinian-owned homes in the Jerusalem area early Thursday morning, forcibly rendering 20 people homeless. Dozens of Israeli soldiers raided Jabal al Baba, situated east of the Jerusalem-area village of Al Ezarriya, and declared the area a closed military zone. Three families, those of Hajja Hamda Abu Kateba, Ali Abu Kateba and Ghassan al Jahaleen, were forced out of their homes, which were then demolished under the pretext of construction without Israeli-issued permits. The Jahaleen local committee responded that 55 additional families, comprising some 300 people, are also under threat of home demolition in the area.

My life is over

Just yesterday Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah slammed the displacement of Palestinian Bedouin communities. In a statement the prime minister said he "deplore(s) the illegal transfer" of the Palestinian Bedouin community, highlighting the issue in the Jerusalem area specifically. "Israel's systematic violation of international laws is no longer acceptable by the international community," Hamdallah was quoted as saying. On Tuesday, the Coordinator for Humanitarian and United Nations Development Activities for the occupied Palestinian territories, Robert Piper, and UNRWA’s West Bank operations director Felipe Sanchez called for “an immediate end” to Israeli plans to displace Bedouin communities in the Jerusalem area. “Under international law, Israel is responsible for meeting the needs of Palestinians living under its occupation and for facilitating humanitarian assistance, not for obstructing aid and pressuring residents to leave so that Israeli settlements can expand,” Piper said in a statement.

Painful to watch

In other news, one Palestinian was critically wounded in the Nablus-area village of Tal in the northern West Bank Thursday morning. Israeli troops conducted an arrest raid in the village when clashes broke out with local residents, two of whom were shot with live bullets. As noted, one remains in critical condition.

Israeli forces further raided the Bethlehem-area refugee camp of Deheishe Thursday morning, arrested two local residents. The camp itself was declared a closed military zone, as was the rode leading from Deheishe to Bethlehem

Human Rights Watch issued this statement back in August 2015:

(Jerusalem) – The Israeli military unlawfully demolished at least 39 structures in Bedouin Palestinian communities in the West Bank on August 17 and 18, 2015. The demolitions left 126 people homeless, 80 of them children. Four of the communities where the demolitions took place are targeted by an Israeli government plan to forcibly “relocate” 7,000 Bedouin.

Such destruction of private Palestinian property and the forcible transfer of Palestinians violate Israel’s human rights obligations and the laws of occupation. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from destroying private property or forcibly transferring the protected population unless strictly necessary for military reasons. Israel does not claim the demolitions or planned relocations are justified for military reasons.

“This escalation of these unlawful Israeli demolitions comes at a time when the situation in Palestine is under the International Criminal Court’s scrutiny,” said Balkees Jarrah, senior international justice counsel. “The ICC prosecutor should look carefully at these demolitions as part of her preliminary examination into serious crimes committed in or from Palestine.”

The August 17 demolition of the homes in the four Bedouin communities, which are located in or around an area called E-1, left 78 people homeless. This is the largest number of Palestinians displaced in a single day in more than three years, according to United Nations officials. E-1 lies between Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim, which like all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international humanitarian law. The four communities are among 46 Bedouin communities across Area C, the area of the West Bank under full Israeli control, that Israel plans to relocate to three other sites in the West Bank. On August 18, the Israeli military demolished homes in the Jordan Valley village of Fusa’il, leaving another 48 people homeless, according to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz.

Israel justifies these demolitions on the grounds that the structures lack Israeli-issued building permits. However, the Civil Administration, the unit in the Israeli military responsible for civilian affairs in the West Bank, routinely rejects virtually all Palestinian requests for such permits, usually on the basis that these areas have not been zoned for construction. Israel has zoned less than 1 percent of Area C for Palestinian construction. In contrast, Israel has approved master plans for Jewish settlements covering 26 percent of Area C. According to information the Civil Administration provided to the World Bank, between 2000 and 2012 Israel rejected more than 94 percent of Palestinian construction permit requests.

Human Rights Watch has documented how the cumulative impact of Israeli restrictions on Palestinian construction and related demolitions, along with other restrictive policies, have resulted in the forcible transfer of Palestinians. Palestinians who are unable to build homes are compelled to move to areas of the West Bank under Palestinian Authority control or to emigrate from Palestine altogether. The August 17 and 18 demolitions in the very communities Israel has earmarked for “relocation” suggests a close relationship between Israel’s zoning, construction, and demolition policies and the forcible transfer of Palestinians, Human Rights Watch said.

Israel carried out the most recent demolitions despite concerted international pressure to keep it from carrying out demolition orders against the entire village of Susiya, in the southern West Bank. So far those demolitions have not occurred.

The ICC statute classifies as a war crime an occupying power’s transfer of its own civilians “directly or indirectly” into territory it occupies. The deportation or transfer of people in the occupied territory from their homes to other locations within or outside this territory is also a war crime under the ICC statute. Since the beginning of 2011, Israeli demolitions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have left more than 4,652 Palestinians homeless, including 1,103 in 2013 and 1,215 in 2014.

V for victory? This is ground zero everyday for too many Palestinians.

"Hello"

"Where are you"?

" I'm in my house"

Now where is my bedroom?